Life as one great search, echoing off of Parquet Courts

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Something of a modern-day Brigitte Bardot, Georgia May Jagger is the youngest daughter of supermodel Jerry Hall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Jagger. She’s taken a liking to modeling, with her signature asset: a gap between her two front teeth. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

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Zoe Kravitz took the my-dad’s-a-rock-star-and-I’ll-be-one-too-thing to heart. As the lead singer of Elevator Flight, Zoe and her mates have performed on the same stages as the Roots and the Black Keys. She’s also acted in “X-Men: First Class” (2011), “After Earth” (2013) and “Californication.” ( Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for H&M)

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Kelly Osbourne was introduced to the world as a harshly honest, tatted teen on MTV’s reality show “The Osbournes.” She turned to music, launching two albums: “Shut Up” (2002) and “Sleeping in the Nothing” (2005), but has since evolved. She now gives style advice on E!’s “Fashion Police.” (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Variety)

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Early on, Lily Collins took an interest in journalism and acting. She wrote the “NY Confidential” column for Elle Girl and was a Nickelodeon TV correspondent. Now an actress, she’s appeared in “The Blind Side,” (2009), “Mirror Mirror” (2012) and “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” (2013). (Abraham Caro Marin / AP Photo)

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Kimberly Stewart shot to fame as Paris Hilton’s club-hitting sidekick. These days, she’s a mother to young Delilah, whose father is Puerto Rican actor-producer Benicio Del Toro. (Danny Martindale / Getty Images)

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A paternity test revealed that Daisy Lowe was rock royalty. Since then she’s been handpicked by designer Karl Lagerfeld to walk the Chanel runway and later modeled for Nanette Lepore, Vivienne Westwood and Burberry. She also posed topless for Esquire and nude for Playboy. (Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images)

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Fashion designer Stella McCartney didn’t need to lean on her father’s Beatles fame. At 16, she interned with French fashion designer Christian Lacroix and went on to study fashion design in London. Stella became chief designer of French line Chloe and then launched her own popular label. (Peter Kramer / Getty Images for North America)

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Theodora began modeling at 14 years old for a Tommy Hilfiger campaign alongside Mick Jagger’s daughter, Lizzy. Since then she’s been snapped by world-renowned photographers and scored the covers of Glamour Italy, Nylon UK and Rolling Stone. Her younger sister Alexandra plays the model cards as well. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

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Frances Bean Cobain’s mother, Courtney Love, supposedly used heroin during her pregnancy, so Frances was taken away. She also visited her father, Kurt Cobain, in rehab until he died. Love later disowned Frances, and photos of her taken by YSL’s Hedi Slimane also drew a spotlight. (Steve Granitz / WireImage)

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Peaches wrote and starred in a documentary about herself as a teenager, “Peaches Geldof: Teenage Mind” (2005). That was after photos of her using heroin hit the Web. In addition to taking care of her two sons, she hosted TV specials. Geldorf was found dead in her home on April 7. She was 25. ( Mike Marsland / WireImage)

By Todd Martens

Jan. 16, 2014 5:30 AM PT

In 2013, films such as “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Spring Breakers” and “Pain & Gain” showed us the corrupting power of cash. The just-scraping-by stress articulated by New York rock band the Parquet Courts, on the other hand, captures the souls who just can’t get a break — a soundtrack for twenty- and thirtysomethings who graduated college and have found dead-end jobs rather than a career.

There’s humor, but it isn’t always pretty. Stoned, starving and facing a meal that’s little more than a bag of Swedish Fish, the souls that populate the Parquet Courts’ most recent full-length, “Light Up Gold,” are all on a mission of sorts, but what they’re searching for often isn’t clear.

“You know that you lack something and you know that you need it, but you don’t know what it is,” says primary songwriter Andrew Savage when asked to summarize the tone of “Light Up Gold.” “That’s a feeling a lot of people can relate to, as it’s a feeling that transcends age and geography.”

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If the band’s growing fan base is any indication, Parquet Courts has clearly tapped a nerve in a generation coming of age post-recession. Critical adoration and relentless touring have gradually grown the act’s audience over the last year, and Friday they’ll play Hollywood’s 1,300-capacity Fonda Theatre — a venue three times the size of the Echo, where they played the last time they toured L.A.

The band (most of whose members are in their late 20s) may be on the rise, but in contrast, better days are never ahead for the characters on “Light Up Gold,” its first widely available album.

Dreams belong to the privileged in Savage’s lyrics and the taut rhythms provided by his younger brother Max, who juggles drumming duties while trying not to lose his scholarship to New York University.

In concise snippets that are often two minutes or less, the Parquet Courts fashion tales of mini-misfortunes out of everyday commonalities. Characters in the hands of Savage and his three bandmates have little to show for the passage of time other than old laundry receipts, and those looking for romance will find it in a trip to the nearest chain restaurant with a buffet.

The guitars are closely cropped and rhythms lock in like Jenga blocks. The tension here, the kind that bears calluses on fingers and fades paint on instruments, arises from the threat that it all may come crumbling down without warning.

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Savage on “Borrowed Time” sings of “waiting for something that I knew wasn’t coming,” burned out on “motivation neglect.” Words trip over themselves in “Donuts Only,” which pokes fun at the Yankee/Texas cultural divide (“you cannot find bagels here”) while dual guitars circle each other like emergency vehicles that can’t find a crash site.

Call it punk rock cynicism if you like, but Parquet Courts tackles financial depression with a documentarian-like eye.

“My brother and I didn’t grow up in money or anything,” Savage says. “We watched our parents go through hard times. I can relate to that kind of stuff and it’s important to me.”

In the past, Savage has cited American authors such as Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo as influences, but he’s shied from discussing specifics, not wanting to be labeled a “literary band.” Yet lyrics come first, says Savage, and melodies are formed from reading words aloud. A new album, for which about 27 songs were written and composed in 13 days, is nearing completion.

Savage hasn’t wavered in his desire for Parquet Courts to exist outside the norm. Some examples of this are more of the day-to-day drudgery type, as Parquet Courts won’t maintain a Twitter account or Facebook page (“We have enough to do in our personal lives,” Savage says), as well as discomfort with overt branding in pop music.

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Four months ago the band did a concert for a backpack manufacturer, only to find out later that footage from the event would be turned into what Savage deems a “thinly veiled youth marketing commercial.”

“It was a sobering moment,” he says. “We were broke and needed the bread. I don’t regret it because it informed how I will approach that kind of stuff in the future. We don’t care too much about posterity, but we don’t know how it’s going to feel in five years. Like, ‘Why did we do that commercial?’”

Youth culture today, Savage told online music magazine Pitchfork last January, is no longer a counterculture. That’s not to say pop artists aren’t trafficking in similar topics as the Parquet Courts.

Lorde’s “Royals” and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop,” for instance, looked at income disparity, but did so as a reaction to ostentatious displays of wealth. There’s little time to pay attention to such trappings here, as songs work up a brief, frustrated frenzy in an attempt to “find something real.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll inherently encourages moments of anger,” Savage says. “The struggles of the underdog — people society doesn’t focus on because they’re not glamorous and they don’t generate income for other people — is an important part of being an artist, especially in rock. You have to be able to align yourself with the fringes.”

todd.martens@latimes.com

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Parquet Courts

Where: Fonda Theatre, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Doors open at 8 p.m. Friday

Cost: $15 ($25 with additional service fees)

Information: https://www.axs.com or (888) 929-7849